Understanding the Interface
- Noah Chamow
When first opening ConneX you’ll notice in the lower left corner of the window two tabs, scenario list and builder. Scenario list is where you can view all of your workflows or scenarios and builder is where you build the workflow itself in the workspace on the right.
ConneX is a node based application which means that each step in a workflow is represented by a node within a larger tree that makes up your workflow. To add a node, in the builder tab simply find the step you want in the list of actions on the left, click and drag it out into the workspace on the right. You should see a box appear with the name of the action and three colored dots. This is called a node. To load your next action you can either right click on the green dot to the right of the node or you can drag the new action in. You’ll notice though that if you drag the new action in, it doesn’t automatically connect to the previous node. To connect them simply click on the green dot to the right of the node for your previous action and click on the green dot to the left of the node for your new action, this should create a connection between the two actions. Alternatively, you can add another node with a connection already established by simply right clicking on the green dot to the right of the existing node, this will bring up a list of available action nodes which when added will automatically connect to the existing node. To disconnect two nodes simply hover over the word next to the colored dot where the node is connected and click the X that appears. To remove a node click the X that appears in the upper right hand corner on hover.
The flow of your node tree is always from left to right with the input represented by the left side of the node and the output by the right. You’ll notice that there are two output options in the node, next and error. Additional nodes can be attached to either or both of these, allowing you to create an if/then/else condition that will still continue even if a step fails.
As you add more nodes you can move them around into any configuration and if you begin to run out of space the workspace is scrollable so you can continue adding nodes as needed.
When you click on a node you will see a pane appear on the right side. This is the settings for the selected node. You can tell which node you have selected by the thick line that appears around the node.
The color around the node indicates whether the node has all the necessary info to run. A green line indicates that all info in the node is completed while a red line tells you that some info is missing and the action will not run.